A broad-shouldered half-elf with weathered olive skin, close-cropped dark brown hair, and one pale green eye damaged by an undead bite that never fully took hold. A thin scar circles the left forearm beneath a leather bracer. Columbus wears a battered military coat over studded leather, with brass buttons polished obsessively and a blue scarf tied around the neck. His lute is reinforced with strips of iron and its strings are made from scavenged gut cord.

Calm during danger, restless during peace, and unfailingly attentive to the smallest signs of panic. Columbus speaks to the dead as if they might still hear him, but speaks to living authority figures with blunt distrust. He has a dry sense of humor and uses old marching songs to make unpleasant chores feel survivable.

Columbus was born in a fortified river settlement where half-elves were valued as interpreters, negotiators, and scouts. He joined the town militia young, not because he loved marching, but because he had an uncanny talent for keeping frightened people moving in the same direction. His songs began as cadence calls during shield drills, then became coded warnings, rallying chants, and grim little ballads about the dead beyond the walls. By the time the first mass grave opened from the inside, soldiers were asking him to sing before every patrol. The outbreak destroyed the settlement in three nights. Columbus served as a runner between the barricades, carrying orders, medicine, and messages through streets crowded with corpses that would not stay down. During the retreat, he was bitten while dragging his commander from beneath a collapsed gate. He did not turn, but the wound left his arm scarred and his dreams full of distant marching feet. Now he travels with a small band of survivors, using music to steady the living and lure the undead away from the vulnerable. He calls every safe camp a temporary garrison, keeps meticulous watch schedules, and refuses to let anyone describe the dead as monsters. To him, they are soldiers who lost the war against their own bodies.